Cutting Frankfurt's Wings

There's been an accident! On Saturday afternoon we experienced something we have not in over a year. But one could argue that it is a loss at the right time. The match against Hamburg unveiled our weaknesses and showed that an effort of 80 percent is even not enough against an staggering opponent. Fortunately the upcoming match day on Tuesday evening allows to correct the defect from Saturday. Nevertheless we will face the surprising team of the current season, Eintracht Frankfurt.

The team from the south of Hesse promoted from the 2nd Bundesliga and won its first four matches against Leverkusen, Hoffenheim, Hamburg and Nuremberg. At the moment Frankfurt is the only club who is able to keep pace with record champion Bayern Munich. Their strength lies within their strong team spirit that helped to outdistance their last opponents.

Coach Klopp thinks of Frankfurt in the same manner: "If it would be easy to win four matches in a row as a promoted team, it would have been done by several other teams before. Frankfurt is very confident and plays great football. They are the parade example how it can look, if you get relegated and think it is the worst that can happen. Only one year later they come back refurbished, play football in a totally different way as before, everything is good again. This totally changes the way of looking at several other relegations. Frankfurt is back, they are doing great."

In addition Klopp said on today's media conference: "They made good transfers, did the best out of their relegation and play nice football - the mentioned four wins in a row are irrelevant." Nevertheless on the part of Borussia Dortmund, Eintracht Frankfurt only gains respect and receives a lot of credit. Still it is the aim of Black and Yellow to cut the wings of Frankfurt and to kidnap three points from the Rhine Main Area.

The performances of Ilkay Gündogan and Sven Bender are still questionable. Both players suffer from a flu and a final decision regarding their travel to Frankfurt will be made on Tuesday morning. Despite the loss in Hamburg, Klopp saw a lot of good approaches which were – understandably – blurred by the three goals conceded. Against a club that defended with eleven players, our offense was still able to find solutions. Anyhow it is only the fault of our own to lose the match. Furthermore Klopp laid stress on the aim to put things right with a win over Frankfurt. He underlined that his team is in a good physical state and needs to stabilize the defense again. Also a question regarding the possible high physical stress because of Champions League, DFB-Pokal and Bundesliga, Klopp rejected definitive. The loss against Hamburg has got nothing to do with stress. As mentioned before, it will be important to refine the defensive processes. New players like Marco Reus need to adapt and learn their new tasks.

My prediction is a really close match against Eintracht Frankfurt. It is time for our team to show what it is really capable of. Come on Black and Yellows, cut the wings of the eagles!